The Invisible Bridge

I spent the afternoon bouncing between the pharmacy and the produce aisle, wondering if Marcus or Sarah ever paused to think about how the milk appeared in the fridge or how the medicine found its way to the nightstand. I was the bridge between their “perfect” careers and their functional home, yet they crossed me every day without ever looking down at the planks.

The front door finally swung open, and Sarah blew in like a gale-force wind. She was mid-sentence on a work call, tossing her keys onto the counter I had just polished. She gave the kids a distracted kiss and threw a “Thanks, Martha!” over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs.

I stood there, a shadow in my own son’s home, waiting for a question about Leo’s cough or Maya’s day. It never came.